


scattering

by antagonists



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: M/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-30 22:16:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6444043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antagonists/pseuds/antagonists
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Routinely, when he has the time to mourn his mother’s passing, Kamui insists on going to the shrine to pray with Sakura. Saizou wordlessly helps him with the obi and geta, thinks that Kamui looks all but comfortable in the silks of his dark kimono. Too quickly, he’s been pushed into another life, another world. It must be confusing, must be painful—but Kamui does not complain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	scattering

**Author's Note:**

> im glad i can gay marry zero but what about the gay ninja twins huh

*

 

 

 _Little boy_ , Saizou had called him, when the naïveté and worldly fascination marked Kamui’s face clearer than day. He often wishes he could say the same, now, when he sees the young lord trudging back from battle, cheeks gaunt and dirty with dried blood. Even reunited with his Hoshidan family, Saizou knows that the princeling still thinks of those whom he’d left behind in the dark, dark castle. Kamui says nothing about it, sometimes whispers to Aqua and her watery silence, and broods mostly at night.

 

The first two times Kamui had snuck out, Saizou had felt guilty from the need to maintain watch over his husband, and thus did not say or do anything from the sudden emptiness of the bed. Suzukaze had then told him about it, and although he hates being chided by his younger twin the most, he hadn’t argued back. He knows, above all, that Suzukaze also cares deeply for their prince. He knows also that where Suzukaze is calm and rational, he is bitter and unapproachable.

 

It’s almost cute how Kamui thinks he is stealthy, rising from the bed and breathing softly so as not to wake him. He’s gotten better about learning which paths across the room are the quietest, how to best balance himself on his toes and slip out into the night. But where Kamui’s had little time for practice, Saizou has had his entire life, and so it is easy to follow the prince without giving himself away.

 

Kamui enjoys climbing up the cherry blossom trees on certain nights; on others he will sit by the deep and reassuring ponds from which the ore is brought. On occasion, even when the nights are cold, Kamui will dive into the waters himself, stripping off his nightwear to reveal his pale and unmarked skin. (Saizou swallows thickly when this happens, hyperaware of the mask covering his mouth and neck).

 

Once, when the prince surfaces with gleaming pearls in his hands, hair dark and wet, Saizou is there waiting for him.

 

“You must be cold,” Saizou says, holding out a clean towel.

 

“Not really,” Kamui says, shivering, but steps closer and allows Saizou to wrap the cloth around his shoulders. He tries not to let his gaze linger on Kamui’s wet throat. “How long have you been watching?”

 

“Since the third night,” he admits softly, and looks away when Kamui turns to stare at him. He fumbles with his words. “I—I trust you, but I worry about you, too.”

 

“I thought I was good about sneaking out.”

 

“Your skills are beyond redemption,” Saizou harrumphs, blushing at Kamui’s coy expression, and promptly marches the prince back to their room. Throughout the rest of the night, Kamui trembles against him in the dark. He doesn’t try to sneak out again.

 

 

*

 

 

Lord Ryouma comments idly, once, over some dango that he insists on sharing, that Kamui has grown remarkably in skill, that he’s become better about hiding secrets.

 

Saizou despises all sweet things, but because Ryouma is his master and is smiling at him kindly, he forces himself to chew and swallow the sticky rice cake. It isn’t like Saizou isn’t aware, either, but he’s never known how to treat people gently, or how to handle fragile skin without breaking it on accident. Saizou sees Kamui’s bruised skin almost every night and waking morning, runs his fingers over the juts of his ribs and spine. Lord Ryouma must know this.

 

“Kamui would tell me everything as a child,” Lord Ryouma says casually, but his voice is still sad. “Before he was taken.”

 

“He is no longer a child, milord,” Saizou replies, and thinks back to their first encounter at the Bottomless Canyon. Among the barren trees and foreboding clouds, Kamui had looked a scared child, but had also belonged amidst the glow of ancient tomes and the steel of double-edged swords. From living beneath Nohr’s dark skies, Kamui’s skin is foreign among the sun-kissed tans of the villagers and warriors.

 

Even now, Kamui has a hard time doing the ties correctly on Hoshidan clothing. He seems overwhelmed with all the flowers that come with spring, alarmed at the ring of shrine bells; the first time he’d seen stalks of unthreshed rice and bright Hoshidan mornings, Kamui’s eyes had glimmered with wonder and unshed tears.

 

Routinely, when he has the time to mourn his mother’s passing, Kamui insists on going to the shrine to pray with Sakura. Saizou wordlessly helps him with the obi and geta, thinks that Kamui looks all but comfortable in the silks of his dark kimono. Too quickly, he’s been pushed into another life, another world. It must be confusing, must be painful—but Kamui does not complain.

 

“I know that this is home,” Kamui tries to tell Saizou. _But I miss Nohr_ goes unsaid, and Saizou instead draws Kamui close to kiss him.

 

 

*

 

 

It is after the crown prince of Nohr falls that Kamui’s fitful nightmares increase in frequency. Kamui is no stranger to nightmares, but seeing his dear dead sister and brother in his dreams must haunt him so. Despite Prince Marx’s ire, he too had fallen victim to Kamui’s burning pleas for peace, for reconciliation. It angers Saizou, sometimes, to think that Kamui is the one to bear the crushing weight of his siblings’ deaths, the remnants of the happy memories they had spent together.

 

But he knows he has no right to speak ill of Kamui’s family, so he remains silent.

 

Having grown up locked up, unexperienced in seeing and smelling death, yet having to lose so many people in a short amount of time—Kamui’s heart is too large, too welcoming, and Saizou often fears that it may lead the dear prince to his end. He himself is used to death, numbed to it, even, especially after Kamui had let him slit the throat of his father’s murderer. If it weren’t for Lord Ryouma and Kamui, Saizou often thinks that he would have no purpose.

 

He may understand, though, when he thinks about anyone trying to kill Suzukaze. Distant they may be, but Suzukaze is still his twin, still the quiet, unassuming boy that had grown up in Saizou’s shadow his entire life. But since duty and loyalty has ruled his entire life, he cannot fathom Kamui’s pain.

 

Kamui shakes in his arms. Hesitantly, Saizou runs his fingers through Kamui’s hair and shifts closer. When cold fingers suddenly grasp at his sides, he forcibly stills his reaction and murmurs into Kamui’s pointed ear. The sensation of Kamui’s hand on his skin borders between pleasant and painful.

 

“You’re ticklish,” Kamui mumbles quietly with his groggy voice, as if just remembering his well-kept secret.

 

“Go to sleep,” Saizou says, and sighs when Kamui digs his fingers in harder.

 

 

The next evening, Saizou finds Kamui at Lilith’s shrine, kneeling in traditional seiza and staring at the wisps of burning incense. The knot of his obi is slightly off, but it’s better than any of Kamui’s previous attempts, so he doesn’t comment on it. At the entrance, his geta are neatly set to the side. His hands and pressed together tightly, and his eyes are open and glassy, unseeing. Without a sound, the ashy end of the incense falls onto paper.

 

He pays his respects as well. It seems only proper, seeing as the little dragon had saved Kamui from his death, had been a pillar of reassurance for Kamui even before the war. The soft presence of her spirit still lingers, not quite a haunting, but almost so.

 

“Come to the spring with me,” Kamui says abruptly, standing slowly. Saizou blinks up at him before doing the same, almost yelps when Kamui firmly grabs one of his hands. His cheeks are warm as they walk through the camp in this manner, and though he bows, he refuses to return Lord Ryouma’s kind smile when they pass by him.

 

When they reach the glittering spring, Saizou watches as Kamui begins to undo the knot of his obi, part his yukata and step out of his geta, slightly afraid.

 

He opens his mouth to speak, but Kamui drags Saizou into the waters fully clothed and laughs at his stricken expression. Kamui’s palm presses against his face.

 

“My clothes are wet,” Saizou splutters, more shocked than he is appalled at the idea of diving with Kamui.

 

The prince’s eyes are rimmed with shadows and his hand still trembles, but he still smiles. Saizou finds it difficult to refuse Kamui’s smile, even at the expense of his dignity. “You can take them off, if you want.”

 

“I’ll keep them on,” he manages to say, and inhales sharply when Kamui dives and kicks the water into his face.

 

 

*

 

 

“You make him happy,” Suzukaze tells him over dinner.

 

Saizou tries not to think about Kamui’s mournful episodes, how his face falls when looking at the opposing Nohrian troops, or the way he’ll try not to cry at night from remembering his lost siblings in Nohr.

 

“I hope so,” he says instead, and wonders, briefly, if the end of the war will truly burn away Kamui’s scars.

 

 

*

 

 


End file.
